Outdoor Education Practice Research Articles

Coming home to place: Aboriginal Lore and place-responsive pedagogy for transformative learning in Australian outdoor education

IntroductionThere is a growing body of research and practice within Australia regarding "place-based pedagogy" in outdoor education (see Brooks, 2002; Cameron, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; Stewart, 2004, 2008; Wattchow, 2001, 2007, 2008; Wattchow & Brown 2011). Arguably, though, these approaches remain at the margins of the field (Hockley & Humberstone, 2012; Wattchow & Brown, 2011). Variously labelled as "place sensitive" (Plumwood, 2003), "place conscious" (Gruenewald, 2003), and "place responsive" (Cameron 2003a, 2003c; Wattchow & Brown, 2011), these approaches share a consciously inquisitive focus on connecting with and coming to know the unique local places that host outdoor education endeavours (Wattchow & Brown, 2011). Further, they seek to explore the ways a deeper, more conscious engagement with place, its human and other-than-human inhabitants, and its cultural history can shape and change both human experiences, perceptions, and intentions and the natural environments in which these experiences occur. Aware of the focus on reciprocity here between humans and ecological communities or, as Plumwood (2003, p. 70) refers to it, the "dialogical mode of interaction," I shall use the phrase place responsive to designate these approaches. Not surprisingly, several authors have acknowledged the value and critical importance of connecting with local Indigenous knowledge and cultural histories to this end (Plumwood, 2000; Stewart, 2004; Wattchow & Brown, 2011).In this paper, I offer a formative exploration of the potential contribution that Aboriginal Lore and cultural knowledge might make to place-responsive pedagogy within the field of outdoor education in Australia. Following Wattchow and Brown (2011), Stewart (2004), and several generations of Aboriginal Lore men and women (Callaghan, 2014), my exposition is grounded in an ethical ecological (including social) concern, leading to two main questions: (1) In what ways do outdoor education programmes and practices operate to perpetuate, challenge, and/or transcend the colonialist and anthropocentric discourses and assumptions that have clearly led to the damage and demise of many ecological communities within Australia? and (2) What might Aboriginal Lore and cultural knowledge offer here, and how might they be included within the field of outdoor education? Through interrogating these questions and encouraging partnerships and collaborations between outdoor educators and local Indigenous people, I aim to contribute to the growing body of place-responsive research and practice in Australian outdoor education.Initially then, I shall engage with place-responsive research and writing to undertake a brief critique of the ways these dominant colonialist and anthropocentric discourses influence practices in Australian outdoor education. In particular, I will focus on the "taken-for-granted" assumptions within the field of outdoor education regarding "nature," the human/nature relationship (including the issue of power), and the construction of identity. This critique brings into question our ways of being, doing, and knowing in the world, particularly regarding the local places we inhabit and visit. As demonstrated by Quay (2015), working explicitly and reflectively regarding ways of being, doing, and knowing in different contexts is central to many outdoor education pedagogies. Quay's (2015) perspective will be taken up to highlight opportunities for transformative learning unique to the field of outdoor education, including those of linking with local Indigenous people and their cultural perspectives, practices, and stories. Hence, I shall introduce and examine two perspectives on Aboriginal Lore: the first, that of Uncle Paul Gordon, a Ngemba man from the Brewarrina area of NSW (Callaghan, 2014) and the second ngurrakurlu (meaning "home within" or "a common sense of belonging"), a Warlpiri perspective from central Northern Territory (Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu, Holmes, & Box, 2008). …

Exploring a pluralist understanding of learning for sustainability and its implications for outdoor education practice

ABSTRACTThis article explores a pluralist understanding of learning for sustainability in educational theory and relates it to outdoor education practice. In brief, this kind of learning can be described as a deep engagement with an individual’s multiple identities and the personal location in diverse geo-physical and socio-cultural surroundings. I identify the intersection of learning for sustainability and pluralism in three themes: learning as transformation, learning as participation and learning about identities and spaces. The reflections on what kind of learning outdoor education could seek to promote potentially help the field to clarify its role as a sustainable education approach. A programme designed to be responsive to both sustainability and pluralism would enable learners to explore the multifacetedness of a location and provide space for them to share and exchange individual experiences, perceptions and worldviews.

Moral relations in encounters with nature

The overall aim of this article is to develop in-depth knowledge about the connection between outdoor experiences and moral attitudes towards nature. The study focuses on processes in which moral relations are at stake in encounters between students and nature. The purpose is to identify such events, describe their specific circumstances and clarify how moral relations are established in these events. The empirical material consists of video-recordings of activities in three different outdoor education practices. In order to identify and categorise moral situations, an analytical tool called the ethical tendency is used. This tool is based on Wittgenstein’s language game method. The findings show that in the investigated outdoor education practices, moral relations towards nature are established in several different ways. The article concludes with four educational implications: responsibility when dealing with moral reactions; bringing ethical questions to the fore; different educational conditions create different encounters with nature; and the consequences of different language games.

The place and approach of outdoor learning within a holistic curricular agenda: development of Singaporean outdoor education practice

This paper details the potential contribution of outdoor education (OE) in Singaporean education given the recent raft of national curricular reforms aimed at fostering holistic and exploratory learning opportunities. In this context, we contend that increasing recognition of the value of OE, both internationally and locally, heralds specific challenges within unique Singaporean educational conditions that must be taken into account for this subject area to flourish. In particular, we seek to distil the ways in which local community, cultural and school conditions signal the need for a more place-based and contextualised version of OE. Our analysis further addresses the need for adequate professional development frameworks to be installed in order to enhance existing local teachers’ capacities to substantially educate pupils through the outdoors, within a Southeast Asian urban context.

Beyond meaningless leisure: John Dewey's influence on Eastern Oregon University's outdoor program

This paper presents the Eastern Oregon University Outdoor Program's application of John Dewey's philosophy of leisure to outdoor education and recreation programming. Central to Dewey's philosophy of leisure is his aversion to a socially constructed dichotomy between work and play. In the case of outdoor education and recreation programs within higher education, the dichotomy can often appear between students' academic studies and recreation (which may include curricular or co-curricular outdoor program courses and outings). The Eastern Oregon University Outdoor Program offers a Winter Wildlife Tracking Program that is grounded in Dewey's philosophy of integrated work and play, and is designed to engage participants in developing higher order and critical thinking skills. These critical thinking skills are facilitated through the application of winter backcountry recreation skills as well as knowledge of local ecology and animal tracking. The paper is presented not as a demonstration of “what works” or what should take place in other contexts, but is rather is intended to encourage new ways of thinking about the practice of outdoor adventure education and recreation within higher education.

Exemplary practices in field trips to natural environments

AbstractIn light of the literature that deals with challenges of outdoor education, this paper presents exemplary practices in field trips to natural environments. We offer an analysis of 62 field trips of students in grades 4–8 (age 10–14), guided by professional guides or by teachers. In aiming at elucidating the qualities of exemplary fieldtrips, we analyze five examples of high quality field trips. Each of the five was exemplary in several aspects, but not necessarily in all. Data were collected though observations and interviews with teachers, guides and students. Interpretative analysis was used in addition to an analytic framework that we developed previously. In general, we stress that good collaboration between the guide and the teacher, who enact active learning and psychomotor activity, and make much use of the environment for student exploration and interaction, are the key to high quality outdoor learning experiences. We provide several examples to support this claim. Other aspects we highlight are a sense of freedom, time and opportunity to enjoy nature and the opportunities to have meaningful social interactions. In light of the prevalent critique toward current outdoor education practice, we suggest the research community learn from good practices. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51: 430–461, 2014

Enough of Ronald and Mickey: focusing on learning in outdoor education

Fifteen years ago Loynes expressed concern that market-place values were detrimentally impacting on the provision of outdoor education experiences. As tertiary educators with an interest in the impact of globalization on outdoor education, we have sought to extend Loynes’ use of McDonaldization by drawing on Bryman’s conceptual framework of Disneyization in order to more deeply understand patterns of contemporary consumption. We draw on field visits to investigate the degree to which these two concepts have permeated the provision of recreational providers that serve schools. We contend that there is evidence that Loynes’ concerns remain valid, but we suggest that more recent discourses around ‘place’ may offer viable and supportable alternatives to ‘consumption-oriented’ outdoor education practice.

Editorial Themed Issue: Relationships With Others

Welcome to this themed issue of Australian Journal of Outdoor Education. All of articles in this issue examine question of relationships with others. The scope and breadth of articles is indicative of complexity of how relationships with others work, why developing positive relationships with others is important and how outdoor education can contribute to this. Dewey (1938) argued that learning occurs through interaction. Learning, in this sense, is not something that happens in isolation, it is something that happens in relation to individual who has experience, others involved, and environment in which it occurs. According to Dewey conceptualises learning relationships learners have with others is fundamental to process of learning. This runs counter to learning, particularly experiential learning, is construed as individual experience by many contemporary authors. For example Beard and Wilson (2006), point out that learning is personal and filtering of experience is individual process. The picture of learning that Beard and Wilson draw here appears to have little to do with interaction. If learning is such a personal and individual process, interaction may in fact get in way of learning. Fenwick (2001) suggests that a major conception of experiential education presumes an independent learner, cognitively reflecting on concrete experience to construct new understandings, perhaps with assistance of educator, toward some social goal of progress or improvement (p. 7). Here learning is still seen as individual process, but Fenwick suggests there may be a place for interactions with a teacher or instructor to assist with that learning. The shift from learning occurring through interaction to learning being a personal and individual experience has occurred in a broader context where neo-liberal political and economic ideologies have come to fore in many Western countries. The rise of neo-liberalism has seen promotion of logic of market-place in all aspects of our lives. This works on assumption that individuals make rational choices based on their best interest and that this is more 'efficient' at directing social distribution of goods and services than political institution of state (Hales, 2006, p. 55). Numerous writers within field of outdoor education have made links between neo-liberal ideologies and contemporary outdoor education practices. In 1998 Chris Loynes wrote about adventure in a bun. He was commenting on how adventure has come to be seen as a commodity like any other commodity in a capitalist society. He argued that capitalist markets have stripped outdoor education of its transformative potential and it is like any other commodity that can be packaged and replicated in a standardised fashion. Connection and relationships are lost in this process of commodification of outdoor education. Like Loynes, Jay Roberts (2012) also utilises work of Ritzer (1993; 2001) in drawing parallels between contemporary practices of experiential education and processes of McDonalisation that are replicated in so many aspects of our lives. The dimensions of McDonalisations that he particularly focuses on are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. Roberts illustrates how these dimensions shape contemporary outdoor education practices, particularly in relation to ropes courses. He argues that in this neo-liberal complex the individual is not located socially, transformatively, or critically ... but rather consumptively as a decontextualized and depoliticised individual consumer (Roberts, 2012, p. 95, original emphasis). Learning in this environment is not only individual process, but individual who learns is disconnected from social world and environment in which they are located. Robert Hales (2006) extended this argument by suggesting that outdoor educators have to think carefully about how they respond to rise of individualism. …

Returning to the richness of experience: is autoethnography a useful approach for outdoor educators in promoting pro-environmental behaviour?

The use of autoethnography in social science research is becoming increasingly popular. The potential this research approach might offer to the theory and practice of outdoor education has yet to be fully examined. In this paper, autoethnography is used to explore some personal accounts of my own outdoor experiences from which I derive distinctive meanings. Data emerge from an extended solo journey by canoe and sea kayak, and a dialectical index is presented to distinguish between two ways of characterising outdoor experiences (adventurous and contemplative). These experiences are then used to contextualise myself, and some ideas, within a wider social world. The paper indicates how environmental philosophy and scientific evidence provide a moral imperative that might act as a guide for outdoor practice. It is argued that such practice must be ontologically grounded in order to explore the possibilities of outdoor experiences in providing moral impulses. The opportunity to think beyond the self also indicates how an autoethnographic lens can provide an approach to teaching and learning to stimulate reflective practice. The findings are presented as exploratory because they invite educators to consider how outdoor experiences might stimulate pro-environmental behaviour both in themselves and in their learners.

Using critical action research to enhance outdoor adventure education instructional practice

Few research studies have been conducted concerning instructional practices in outdoor adventure education (Crosby, 2000; Phipps & Claxton, 1997). The application of critical action research strategies to enhance instructional practice within an outdoor adventure education preparation program is explored as a possible methodology to add to this knowledge base. The study took place within a program consisting of a collection of college courses called the Outdoor Adventure Leadership Immersion Semester Program (OAL ISP). Nine participants, two apprentice instructors, and the instructor of record were immersed within the experience for four months while conducting the study. Data from evolutive mini group sessions, collaborative discussions, instructional observations, and participant journals revealed three themes regarding the modification of instructional practice. These themes included assessing experience through journal construction, leadership melioration through leader of the day experiences, and enhancing reflection through journal topic development. The methodology used in this study provides a platform from which to examine how to improve outdoor adventure education instructional practice.

Developing approaches to outdoor education that promote sustainability education

Social, economic, and environmental issues facing 21st century societies compel a transformative shift towards sustainability in all spheres of life, including education. The challenges this holds for outdoor education programs and practices is significant. If outdoor education theory and practice is to make a greater contribution to sustainability education it must explore both alternatives and alterations to approaches based on adventure pursuit activities and personal development doctrines. For over a decade there have been calls from across the world to include greater emphasis on human/nature relationships, place, social justice, and ecological perspectives in outdoor education. This article adds to those calls through advocating for a pedagogical approach to outdoor education that promotes sustainability education. Drawing from recent doctoral research this article introduces a model which describes a change process towards sustainability focused pedagogy. The model suggests change can take place in three areas for educators: first, in philosophy, values, and understandings, second, in infrastructure, resource use, and programming, and third, in teaching and learning strategies. It is at the nexus of these three areas that the most effective pedagogical change can be found.

An educational tool for outdoor education and environmental concern

The purpose of this paper is to suggest an outdoor education model that respects the need to critically discuss the general belief in a causal relationship between experiences of nature, environmentally-friendly attitudes and behavioural change, but that at the same time respects the legitimate claims on the part of outdoor education practice for concretisation and clarity. The foundation of this model consists of a combination of theoretical perspectives and models that have been generated through a number of Swedish interdisciplinary research projects concerning human interrelationships with the landscape during the last decade. The paper first focuses on the subtleties of environmental concern with the aid of an environmentally historic model of how care for nature and environmental protection successively developed during the last century. It then addresses different aspects of outdoor education by presenting two specific models: a model of two principally diverse motives for this education, and a model of three different approaches to the landscape when executing outdoor education. In the final section these models are assembled in a suggested model for outdoor education and environmental concern, and identify a handful of main educational paths. The paper concludes with a brief discussion about continued research and examples of what can be regarded as particularly important developments and additions to the suggested model.

Balancing more than backpacks: Communitarian ideas applied to educational expeditions

This paper examines the viability of using a communitarian framework within outdoor education practice, specifically in order to address the tension between individual rights and social responsibility that is frequently found on overnight (or multi-day) educational expeditions. The setting of educational expeditions offers rich potential for exploring concepts of how the expression of rights generates claims upon others and how an assumption of rights presumes certain responsibilities. The implications of utilising a communitarian framework in outdoor education is examined through the analysis of two educational expedition scenarios. The paper concludes that a communitarian framework, particularly the concepts of rights and responsibilities and the establishment of shared values, can be useful for facilitating discussion around the often messy and complex area of interpersonal dynamics on educational expeditions. In addition, the direct parallels between an expedition experience and society at large, viewed through a communitarian lens, offers educational relevance beyond the outdoor education experience.

Michel Foucault Goes Outside: Discipline and Control in the Practice of Outdoor Education

This paper is concerned with if, and how, measures of discipline and control are involved in outdoor and experiential education. Using the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, author of Discipline and Punish (1975), we shall explore how educational practice may be used to control people and to render them into “docile bodies.” We follow this with an examination of what Foucault calls the three means of correct training used for the creation and maintenance of docile bodies: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgments, and examination. Through the use of examples we will proceed to argue that outdoor and experiential education programs do exercise mechanisms of control that may at times operate contrary to purported goals. Thus, using Foucault as our guide, we examine the question of discipline and control, together with the concomitant issue of the relations of power within our society. While recognizing that discipline and control are, at times, necessary and desirable, we will argue that outdoor and experiential educators should understand how negative relations of power operate so that they may avoid unwittingly incorporating them into their practices and programs.

A pedagogy of place: Outdoor education for a changing world

The subtitle of this book suggests that Wattchow and Brown are concerned with how outdoor education can respond to the changing world. In this book they explore what a pedagogy of place might offer, both in terms of outdoor education practices, and in terms of giving people some tools and resources to help them to engage with this changing world. While many critical questions have been asked about outdoor education practice, in this book the authors endeavour to build on some of these critiques to explore some different ways to do outdoor education. They have aimed to make this book accessible to a wide audience, including teachers, practitioners, tertiary students and academics. The central theme of the book is what outdoor education might look like and what it might do if place were taken seriously as a pedagogical tool. They open the book with a short explanation of place to set the tone for their explorations. Place is about how people develop and experience a sense of attachment to particular locations and has both imaginative and physical realities. In keeping with their argument that place should be central to our pedagogic practices, the first chapter contains the authors' respective narratives of their attachment to places, what this means for them and some of the things that have moved them both toward a realisation that place is important in outdoor education. This approach also illustrates the importance narrative has in developing understandings and attachment to places and is a tool used in all of the case studies. The next three chapters lay out the theoretical basis for the case studies they introduce later in the book. Chapter two summarises some of the myths, dubious claims, and denial of place in outdoor education theory. Wattchow and Brown explore how romantic notions of nature, adventure and risk, and the ways in which the experiential learning cycle work to "collectively silence or work against a placeresponsive responsive approach" (p. 50) in outdoor education. This chapter is a very useful summary of some of the recent critiques of outdoor education. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chapter three is the most theoretically densechapter in the book and it is here that Wattchow and Brown canvass some of the key ideas around place. One thing that becomes clear through this chapter is that place is a dynamic concept. In making a case for place they posit that modern life, and the mobility that is part of that life, create a sense of place lessness. As they note the question of place has arisen because how we live today is raising serious concerns about the sustainability of places and the "unavoidable reciprocity between people and places" (p. 54), means this has serious implications for us as well as for those places. In this chapter, Wattchow and Brown return in various ways to place being open and constantly changing, rather than being a fixed entity, but at the same time our identities are "bound up with the places we claim as ours" (p. 66). They describe some of the theories they draw on later in the book to understand how relationships with place might evolve. They introduce Edward Relph's concept of the insider or outsider, where the outsider is a person who experiences place as little more than background. The insider, on the other hand, depicts a deeper level of attachment to place that is gained through spending long periods in a specific place. One of the highlights of this book for me is that Wattchow and Brown locate the body as central to learning. As they point out, the body is not only ignored, but often erased in much of the outdoor education literature. There is usually little scope to explore how bodies and movement are integral to understanding and identity in outdoor education. They highlight that the sensing body is an important way into knowing, and living and moving in a place is central to knowing and understanding a place. In chapter four, Wattchow and Brown anchor the theoretical and often abstract discussion in chapter three into outdoor education. …

Researching the outdoors: exploring the unsettled frontier between science and adventure

Outdoor practitioners and academic geographers arguably share a common origin in the explorers of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The two interests diverged during the twentieth century, as academic geography became less dependent on travel, and the pursuit of knowledge no longer provided the sole justification for exploration and adventure, but some synergies remain, at least in experiencing and making sense of the natural environment. This paper reflects on some pilot fieldwork for an on‐going research project that combines fluvial geomorphology and outdoor education practice, in order to explore the parallels and differences between physical geography and outdoor education. A key area of divergence is identified in the degree of attention paid to the ‘self’, and particularly the body, in our interactions with the environment. We highlight the role of embodied experience both in our approach to the field site and in the subsequent framing and re‐framing of the research project, joining calls for greater attention to be paid to the corporeal practice of fieldwork. We conclude by arguing that Driver's notion of an ‘unsettled frontier’ (2001, Geography militant: cultures of exploration and empire Blackwell, Oxford) between science and adventure is as relevant for contemporary discourse as he suggests it is for historical geography.

Michel Foucault Goes Outside: Discipline and Control in the Practice of Outdoor Education

Michel Foucault Goes Outside: Discipline and Control in the Practice of Outdoor Education

Educational potentials of encounters with nature: reflections from a Swedish outdoor perspective

Direct encounters with the natural environment have a long tradition in environmental education. Given that the role and character of these encounters are shaped by the approach taken to environmental or sustainability education, there is a risk that a shift towards pluralistic and political approaches will lead to a neglect of nature encounters. On the basis of an analysis of Swedish/Scandinavian outdoor and environmental history and current Swedish outdoor education practice, we suggest six potentials of encounters with nature: (1) an experience‐based meaning of nature; (2) a relational ethical perspective; (3) the addition of a fourth perspective to sustainable development; (4) human ecology in practice; (5) sensing the quality of a simple life; and (6) democracy, identity and dwelling. We argue that these potentials widen the scope of environmental and sustainability education, while highlighting the need for a situated, dynamic and process‐oriented concept of nature, rather than a static one in which nature is understood as a particular place or specific organisms.

Whose place, whose history? Outdoor environmental education pedagogy as ‘reading’ the landscape

Outdoor education practice around the world occurs in diverse circumstances, environments and cultures. The application of outdoor education to specific cultural and environmental issues in particular places and communities has received little attention in research. While research in fields such as cultural geography has addressed the relationships between cultures, communities and geographical places, this is largely overlooked in outdoor education research. In this paper I draw on literature from cultural history and environmental history to explore how these disciplines might inform outdoor education research and pedagogy that addresses current cultural and environmental issues of specific communities and geographical places. With the aid of the rhizome metaphor for (re)structuring knowledge, I use examples from my practice in Australia to demonstrate how reading the landscape and the use of stories, or historical accounts, can assist outdoor educators and participants to probe and reflect on the relationships between personal experience and the complex cultural-ecological processes that have shaped the places in which we live and work.

‘Is what you see what you get?’ The production of knowledge in-between the indoors and the outdoors in outdoor education

Background: Many believe the ‘outdoors’ is a key factor influencing student learning in ‘outdoor education’ because it is so different from the ‘everyday’ indoor contexts of students' lives. In much of the outdoor education literature the outdoors is construed as a neutral and simplified space which allows students to have more ‘real’ and meaningful experiences than is possible in mainstream or ‘indoor’ schooling. Purpose: In this paper we draw on Foucauldian theoretical insights to interrogate some of the ways this binary distinction of indoor/outdoor is both produced and sustained in outdoor education and the effect this has on practice. We examine how this presumed indoors/outdoors distinction works to make particular assumptions about what and how students learn in outdoor education appear coherent and plausible while excluding possibilities of alternative student learning in this field. Participants and settings: This article focuses on one aspect of a larger ethnographic study of the outdoor education programme in a New Zealand all girls secondary school. Data collection: The first author observed and participated in the outdoor education programme of this school during 2002. Students were interviewed about their perceptions of their experiences on camp at the end of each residential camp. The two outdoor education teachers were interviewed about their perceptions of outdoor education at the end of the year. Findings: The rhetoric of the role of the outdoors in outdoor education provides a limited and partial understanding of students' experiences and what it is possible for them to learn in the outdoors. We argue that this indoors/outdoors binary produces particular knowledge of self and others and environment and specific ways of understanding students that are not necessarily advantageous to all. Conclusion: We conclude by urging a re-consideration of the sanctity of the indoors/outdoors divide—one that attends to the potential effects on students, teachers and outdoor education as a subject area, of continuing to premise outdoor education philosophy and practice on its unproblematised ‘existence’.